Topic: Castlevania Order of Ecclesia is mediocre at best

[sonicabid]

In Reply To #17

Wow, there was someone saying the music sucked in one of the other threads too. Screw you guys who hate the music, it's fucking great.

[paletteswapmonster]

There's really not much differentiating this from PoR or DoS.

What?! Oh my...

[azielsatori]

quoted for great justice

each quote will add more power to the fact that PoR is horseshit.

[Darth Cariss]

I would hardly say the music sucks, though I like PoR's sound track better. I still quite enjoyed the game overall, even if it might have lacked a little in some areas (it's hard to top the final battle of PoR). I liked the characters and artwork.

[Marty Belmont]

each quote will add more power to the fact that PoR is horseshit.

PoR is one of the greatest games ever made.

[Long John Silver]

In Reply To #23

bizarro much?

[shelverton.]

it's hard to top the final battle of PoR

I keep hearing that from people, and it makes me wonder if I even played the same PoR as them? The final battle in my PoR took place in a cramped room with Dracula and Death coming at me at the same time. It was a mess, it lacked focus, and didn't feel epic at all. I was waiting for the REAL DEAL, but it never happened.

[NonaKade]

In Reply To #23

That signature just made me like PoR a little bit more

[jimmay17]

Wow. Two years later and apparently we still can't stop talking about Portrait of Ruin. I still like the game, for what it's worth, warts and all.

As for OOE, it's a mixed bag. Clearly Iga or someone at Konami was listening to the fans' criticisms, for much was fixed this time out. We ditched the tiresome anime artwork, the difficulty was leveled up noticeably (at least in the beginning, more on that later), we got a boatload of new enemy sprites, some of them pretty damn good (the lorelei [sp?] is a particular favorite), the background artwork, at least in the castle, is some of the best in the series, and all remnant of juvenile humor was gutted from the storytelling (no more obnoxious rivalry between Jonathan and Charlotte or nauseating flirting between Hammer and Yoko to have to stomach).

That all works and is a welcome change. Now what didn't work: Yes, the early reviews were right, just like Portrait of Ruin almost half of the areas outside the Castle are copy/paste. We have two ocean levels (Kalidus Channel and Somnus Reef), two mountain road levels (Oblivion Ridge and Misty Forest Road), two dilapidated mansion levels (Giant's Dwelling and Mystery Manor), and two mountain levels (Tristis pass and Tymeo Mountains); all of them entirely similar in both layout and backgrounds. The only thing that changes is the enemies. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, but enough people complained about lividly with Portrait that I'm a little surprised it gets a pass here.

As I mentioned earlier, I have reservations about the difficulty level. The beginning levels of the game are pretty damn challenging, it's really not uncommon to find yourself getting killed by common or 'lesser' enemies if you don't watch your health and make some careless strategic mistakes, and some of the bosses are downright hard: Goliath, the Crab, and the water sprite all made me die at least a few times while I memorized the nuances and exact timing of their patterns. And once you do get their patterns down to a science, you have to keep up your patterns more or less exactingly for a considerable amount of time while you use your often narrow attack windows to whittle down

[AxeArmor]

am I the only one who think that there is a serious shortage of equipment?

I mean, you can get shanoas best armor and leggings about 40% into the game! Ridiculous.

[paletteswapmonster]

PoR is one of the greatest games ever made.

PoR = Pork

Pork = Portrait of Rotting Krap

[CapComMDb]

We have two ocean levels (Kalidus Channel and Somnus Reef), two mountain road levels (Oblivion Ridge and Misty Forest Road), two dilapidated mansion levels (Giant's Dwelling and Mystery Manor), and two mountain levels (Tristis pass and Tymeo Mountains);

I'm going to add to this that some rooms, particularly the big rooms in the mountain stages, are more or less exact copies of other rooms you just went into. I found this really annoying as it's the kind of thing you only really expect to see in an NES game. There really needed to be more variety in those levels.

I disagree with the music though. Overall I'm pretty impressed by it. While I don't think it's the best the DS can do, there are a few tracks in there I really enjoy (An Empty Tome, Rhapsody of the Fallen, Wandering the Crystal Blue, Hard Won Nobility) and some I really don't like (Tragedy's Pulse). I've also found the music seems to sound better when I play it back on my speakers than through headphones

Regarding difficulty, I had problems on later bosses, but it's definitely pattern-based. If you know the pattern, you can win; figuring that out and perfecting it is what covers the try/try again part (I'm personally satisfied with the technique I discovered to kill Death in less than 30 seconds without getting hit ). I can see your character becoming incredibly maxed out if you beat the two challenge stages first, but if you didn't, Dracula can still beat you around.

[dark_soul]

i never head about simon's quest esque or whatever the hell that is... but for me yeah some other parts of OoE is stupid, and obtaining medals and putting them on the "Use Items" list is also stupid, how come they would put the medals just like that? it seems like the medals we're just picked up, also the status screen above seemed less cool, no level completion, pictures, not even a little cool thing about it, just writings and bestiary of what you killed...

[sfried]

I don't understand why people don't like the music. Most of it reminds me of ambient SNES game melodies, especially Tymeo Mountains (Jaws of a Scorched Earth) and Kalidus Channel (A Clashing of Waves). It's not necessarily actions beats, but then again it doesn't need to be.

As for people complaining it to be the worst "Metroidvania": I like the return to the more linear (and action focused) Castlevania format. I agree the item management is particularly cumbersome and gets in the way of the old-school "Classicvania" feel.

[dark_soul]

i guess this are the probable reason why the game went "mediocre best"

Where to start? I am so disappointed. Well the glyph system is nothing more than a Soulsystem, only with less glyphs. And because of its magic use, it feels very secondary. Yeah wtf, it feels like there is no primary weapon system in this game.

Sword glyph > Better Sword glyph > Even Better Sword glyph

1. when you play/played castlevania SOTN Alucard already had skills of his own, the only left of him is to collect weapons around the castle, the probable reason for this is because of Soma becoming the new INCARNATION of dracula, he is able to absorb souls from enemies in his castle, the glyph system is the same, but if it were to look like SOTN (where you use swords) it might as well end up as PoR which rather PURELY UGLY  the Glyph system enables us to use 2 combos and union, soma isn't able to do that so beating up bad guys are 2x harder than shanoa

Then the level design. More simon's quest esque? Not really! It has one tiny village which can be accessed at any time. The world map is so pointless, they might as well crammed everything in the usual castle like they did with the 2nd half of the game.

2. remember that they called it Order of Ecclesia? pretty weird from where they came from, but if albus weren't to betray Barlowe and Ecclesia then Shanoa could've head up the dracula's castle and started finishing the game already XD the point about the world map is for shanoa to follow albus and to find the rest of [Dominus] and her memories as well, or if albus ddn't betray them, somebody else had to take away shanoa's powers just like what happened to alucard at SOTN (taken by death )

And dont get me started on the music. Castlevania is one of my favorite franchises ever when it comes to music. I have almost loved every installation for its awesome soundtrack. I expected no different with OoE, especially since it was 2 years since PoR was released.

3. Yeah when im at tymeo mountains i had to use RECORD 5 to get rid of the music, i guess some of the BGM didn't went well, but at some parts of OoE the BGM are fine (for some players)

the other things i found out stupid was obtaining medals that are put at USED ITEMS list.. what's that? no medal case? it'd really weird if it happened to be a trophy XD..

in addition to the village thing, i guess the reason why enemies doesn't drop anything much it's because shanoa is going to be a blacksmith or something, people in the village are assigned to give shanoa quest for recipes and items needed.. then if your done, you're given a reward for your hard work! i remmber i killed the Bone Dragon on PoR several times because im tardy playing it, suddenly it dropped Zweihander the German 2 sword XD 40 dmg all and all but super slow, packs a punch thou